I don't know if this is the right forum for this but here goes. There have been several threads about pain that have been posted lately and I found this related study which I had fortunately bookmarked.
I think I might have mentioned this topic and cited an article several years ago about the hypothesis that pain changes the brain. This is further research, from 2014 that shows how this mechanism may work with motivation. At this point it's only been shown in rats.
People who are in chronic pain often lose motivation to do things. This is only logical and people assume that once the pain is gone, motivation will return.
The hypothesis which this study addresses, is that this is smplistic and come up with a hypothesis that goes beyond this. The authors note that pain becomes it's own disease and directly affects the part of the brain that has to do with motivation. Unfortunately, once the pain stops, at least in this mouse study, the brain continues this process and the lack of motivation continues. The pain takes on a life of it's own.
They hypothesize, actually it might be another article, that this may also happen with other behaviors/reactions when a patient experiences pain. It becomes self feeding.
I didn't know this process, until I noticed that besides Fibromyalgia, I eventually ended up with the additional diagnosis of "Chronic Pain Syndrome". My neurologist explained why this was added. I would be interested seeing if there have been other studies since then and will look.
This also shows that while behavior/thoughts may have an impact on how you experience pain the opposite is a stronger factor.
Someone made a visual for this process but I'm not sure how to replicate it here. I can't remember who but it was quite helpful.
So the cbt advocates can just flush their theory down the toilet! We need a emoticon for this.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-n...anism-behind-chronic-pains-sapping-of-mo.html
Barb
I think I might have mentioned this topic and cited an article several years ago about the hypothesis that pain changes the brain. This is further research, from 2014 that shows how this mechanism may work with motivation. At this point it's only been shown in rats.
People who are in chronic pain often lose motivation to do things. This is only logical and people assume that once the pain is gone, motivation will return.
The hypothesis which this study addresses, is that this is smplistic and come up with a hypothesis that goes beyond this. The authors note that pain becomes it's own disease and directly affects the part of the brain that has to do with motivation. Unfortunately, once the pain stops, at least in this mouse study, the brain continues this process and the lack of motivation continues. The pain takes on a life of it's own.
They hypothesize, actually it might be another article, that this may also happen with other behaviors/reactions when a patient experiences pain. It becomes self feeding.
I didn't know this process, until I noticed that besides Fibromyalgia, I eventually ended up with the additional diagnosis of "Chronic Pain Syndrome". My neurologist explained why this was added. I would be interested seeing if there have been other studies since then and will look.
This also shows that while behavior/thoughts may have an impact on how you experience pain the opposite is a stronger factor.
Someone made a visual for this process but I'm not sure how to replicate it here. I can't remember who but it was quite helpful.
So the cbt advocates can just flush their theory down the toilet! We need a emoticon for this.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-n...anism-behind-chronic-pains-sapping-of-mo.html
Barb